Rise early to see the pre-dawn lineup of the Golden Age























Early risers who have a clear view to the east (worth driving a little ways to find one if you do not) can see a spectacular morning array of stars, planets, and constellations right now, and one with great historical significance for the human race.

Above is an image from Sky & Telescope's excellent "Interactive Sky Chart" application (which is free to use once you create a login ID and password), showing the morning sky at 4:30 am, looking to the east, for a viewer at latitude 35 North.

In the image above, one can see that Orion dominates the horizon, with nearby Gemini also above the horizon and waiting for the sun to come up in their vicinity as the earth continues to rotate towards the east (think of the horizon plunging "downwards" in the direction that you are looking as you stare at the image).  

Above Orion is the distinctive "V" shape of Taurus the Bull, with his long horns.  The planets Venus and Jupiter are close to one another and to reddish star Aldebaran and clearly visible in this image.  Just out of view in this image but clearly visible in the predawn sky is the waning crescent moon, which is just above the top of the image and roughly in line with Venus and Jupiter (a bit to the right of them as you look east) and close to the beautiful Pleiades (also out of view on this image above the top edge of the image).

To see a helpful diagram of the waning crescent moon as it becomes thinner and thinner and its "lead" in front of the sun gets shorter and shorter over the next few mornings, see this Sky & Telescope discussion of "This Week's Sky at a Glance" and the first diagram in that article.

What makes the morning lineup so exciting right now is the fact that it is very similar to the morning lineup of stars prior to the sunrise on the important Spring Equinox (March Equinox) back in the Age of Gemini, four "Ages" ago (prior to the Age of Taurus, which was prior to the Age of Aries, which was prior to the current Age of Pisces, which is now almost over as well).

In their seminal 1969 work Hamlet's Mill, Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend present a plethora of evidence, primarily from world mythology, that this lost Age of Gemini was recorded in myth as the "Golden Age."  For more discussion of that concept, see this previous post.  

Due to the phenomenon of precession, the entire sky has been "delayed" in the view that it presents on the same day each year (such as on the morning of the March Equinox, or on the morning of July 14, etc).  For more on that concept, you may want to view the recent video entitled "Precession = The Key."

In any event, try to make plans during the next several days to rise before the sun and observe the stunning array of heavenly bodies making up this historic spectacle.

Is the Cavalier Hotel really haunted?




















I recently had the opportunity to revisit Virginia Beach, Virginia and to see the historic Cavalier Hotel again, a famous old hotel which opened in 1927.

Known as the "hotel that made Virginia Beach famous" and "the aristocrat of the Virginia seashore," the hotel has hosted several US presidents and once was the largest hirer of big bands in the world, entertaining the guests of its Beach Club with artists such as Glen Miller and Cab Calloway.

As is the case with many icons of past glory -- especially those with one or more tragic events in their past -- the hotel is reputed to be haunted.

Here is a link to a section of the book Haunted Virginia Beach by Alpheus Chewning which describes the many ghost stories associated with the "Grand Dame of the Shore," many of them involving lights, noises, and other activity in the upper storeys during the months that the hotel is closed (it is only open to guests during the period between June 15 and Labor Day).

Here is a link to an eerie photograph and account from a recent visitor who was in the area in April of 2011 and decided to have a look around, even though the hotel was closed for the off-season.

You can decide for yourself what to make of the many descriptions of paranormal encounters at the old hotel.  At the very least, these sorts of accounts, which are found the world over, raise questions about human consciousness and whether consciousness survives the death of the body -- a proposition which is denied by the "ideology of materialism."

A few previous posts which have touched on this important question include:
and
Recent posts have also explored the work of Jeremy Naydler, who finds evidence that the ancient Egyptians knew that consciousness could move into a realm beyond the material and who deliberately participated in rituals designed to enable out-of-body travel into the spirit world.

If you ever find yourself in Virginia Beach, you may be interested in paying a visit to the historic old Cavalier Hotel.

Precession = The Key



I just uploaded a video entitled "Precession = The Key." 

Its purpose is to provide a clear overview of some of the most important concepts discussed in the Mathisen Corollary book and this blog.

Please have a look and, if you find it worthwhile, please feel free to share it with friends and to give it a "like" or write some feedback -- thanks!

Why is it important to understand the precession of the equinoxes? Because precession is the key to seeing the evidence that the very most ancient civilizations were far more advanced than conventional historians and academia will admit.

Precession also enables us to see evidence of global trans-oceanic contact long before Columbus. It can even enable us to see evidence that the ancients may have known the size and shape of our spherical earth -- before the construction of the Great Pyramid!

This shocking conclusion completely upends the fabricated myth of linear upward progress from early civilizations to modern civilization. It has far-reaching consequences.

There are numerous previous posts dealing with all of the topics covered in the video. If you want more detail on anything discussed in the video, you can use the handy "internal search" window at the top-left of this page (for terms such as "precession," "Orion," "Osiris," "consciousness," "linear," "solstices" and so forth).

Thanks for watching, sharing and responding!

Birthday of Nikola Tesla (1856 - 1943)

























July 10 is the birthday of Nikola Tesla, born this day in 1856 in Smiljan, Croatia.

Tesla was an amazing genius and creative thinker, a designer of new inventions who explained that he could visualize an apparatus in his mind, assemble it in his mind, test it in his mind, and then disassemble it and inspect it for wear and binding and friction . . . in his mind! (Autobiography, cited in The Tesla Papers, edited by David Hatcher Childress, 13).

The introduction to the Tesla Papers (cited above) explains that, although he is not popularly given credit for the following inventions, it appears that Tesla's designs were the first in many areas that are usually attributed to later inventors:
Ask any school kid: "who invented radio"? If you get an answer at all it will doubtless be Marconi -- an answer with which all the encyclopedias and textbooks agree. Or ask most anyone: "who invented the stuff that makes your toaster, your stereo, the street lights, the factories and offices work?" Without hesitation, Thomas Edison, right? Wrong both times. The correct answer is Nikola Tesla, a person you have probably heard of. There's more. He appears to have discovered x-rays a year before W. K. Roentgen did in Germany, he built a vacuum tube amplifier several years before Lee de Forest did, he was using fluorescent lights in his laboratories 40 years before the industry "invented" them, and he demonstrated the principles used in microwave ovens and radar decades before they became an integral part of our society. Yet we associate his name with none of them. [. . .] His practical career started in 1881 in Budapest, Hungary, where he made his first electrical invention, a telephone repeater (the ordinary loudspeaker) and conceived the idea of a rotating magnetic field, which later made him world famous in its form as the modern induction motor. [. . .] Another one of Tesla's inventions that is familiar to anyone who has ever owned an automobile was patented in 1898 under the name "electrical ignitor for gas engines." More commonly known as the automobile ignition system, its major component, the ignition coil, remains practically unchanged since its introduction into use at the turn of the century. Nikola Tesla also built prototypes of a unique fuel burning rotary engine based upon his earlier design for a rotary pump. Recent tests that have been carried out on the Tesla bladeless disk turbine indicate that, if constructed using newly developed high temperature ceramic materials, it will rank as the world's most efficient gas engine, out-performing our present day piston type internal combustion engines in fuel efficiency, longevity, adaptability to different fuels, cost and power to weight ratio. 12-15.

Tesla is perhaps best known today, however, for his ground-breaking work in the transmission of electricity over distances, and the dramatic propagation of bolts of energy from high-energy Tesla coils. His later work led into extremely low frequencies including the resonant frequency of planet Earth, the production of huge bolts of artificial lightning, the search for signals from extraterrestrial life in outer space and the creation of devices that could send signals to other planets, the investigation of radiation, and the investigation of the science of plasma energy (which remains a largely open field for study to this day).

Through his science, Tesla was able to transmit electricity wirelessly to remote devices, using wireless electrical power to light the lamps at his own laboratories. However, his efforts to deliver inexpensive or even free power were stymied by business rivals (most notably Thomas Edison, who went to great lengths to portray Tesla's AC power as dangerous in comparison to Edison's DC power, including funding a road show in which Edison's representatives electrocuted dogs and one time even an elephant).

As explained in the Tesla Papers, Tesla believed our planet's conditions could provide free and abundant energy for all:
Tesla wrote in Century Magazine in 1900: ". . . that communication without wires to any point of the globe is practicable.  My experiments showed that the air at the ordinary pressure became distinctly conducting, and this opened up the wonderful prospect of transmitting large amounts of electrical energy for industrial purposes to great distances without wires.  Its practical consummation would mean that energy would be available for the uses of man at any point of the globe.  I can conceive of no technical advance which would tend to unite the various elements of humanity more effectively than this one, or of one which would more add to and more economize human energy . . ."  This was written in 1900!  After finishing preliminary testing, work was begun on a full sized broadcasting station at Shoreham, Long Island.  Had it gone into operation, it would have been able to provide usable amounts of electrical power at the receiving circuits.  After construction of a generator building (still standing) and a 180 foot broadcasting tower (dynamited in World War I on the dubious pretext of being a potential navigation reference for German U-boats), financial support for the project was suddenly withdrawn by J. P. Morgan when it became apparent that such a worldwide power project couldn't be metered and charged for.  14-15.
Whether Tesla had really discovered the secret to providing free and abundant power to heal the divisions between a divided mankind remains unknown.

It is indisputable, however, that powerful business and political interests sometimes labor mightily to prevent new and less expensive forms of power being made available -- in fact, it can be demonstrated that such efforts to block sources of new or less expensive or more abundant energy continue to this very day.

It is also indisputable that Tesla was an incredible genius, an example of the incredible power of the human mind, and an inventor who truly sought to benefit others.



The Scorpion and the Smoky Abyss

























Back in May a previous blog post alerted readers to the return of the constellation Scorpio (or Scorpius) to the early evening sky (back then it was rising out of the horizon in the east in the hours before midnight), along with some links to posts describing the best way to locate this distinctive constellation as well as some discussion of its ancient mythological significance, much of it based on the work of Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend in Hamlet's Mill.

Almost two months later, the Scorpion is "culminating" (reaching its highest point, or "transit" point, in the sky) at approximately 10:30 pm -- a very accessible time for stargazing.  It is a beautiful sight, as Scorpio is a very long and brilliant constellation, like a string of jewels in the southern sky.

As you can see from the image above, which indicates celestial latitude, the Scorpion stretches from about twenty degrees south of the celestial equator at the top of the constellation (its pincers) down to nearly forty-five degrees south of the celestial equator (the graceful curve of its stinger-bearing tail).

Because it stretches so far below the celestial equator, viewers in the northern latitudes of the northern hemisphere rarely see the full constellation -- it can often be seen rising above the horizon, but the lower parts of its long sinuous tail are often obscured by the horizon. Your best opportunity to see the entire constellation is when it reaches its highest point on its arc across the southern sky, which (as mentioned above) is now taking place at about 10:30 pm (and getting earlier by about four minutes each night).

The entire constellation of the Scorpion is a glorious sight to see, and well worth the effort.  For incredible time-lapse videos that feature the Scorpion and the Milky Way (and some discussion of the importance of the Scorpion's station at the southern end of the Galaxy) see this previous post. 

The Scorpion is located "just to the right" of the shining band of the Milky Way where the Galaxy rises up from the horizon to arc across the sky (at the other end are the Twins and the Crab).  Higher up in this beautiful path across the heavens from Scorpio are the constellations of the Eagle and the Swan, flying towards one another -- they are now beginning to be clearly visible in the east during the hours after sunset, and as summer progresses they will be seen further and further across the sky until they dominate the center-stage of the nightscape.

Hertha von Dechend and Giorgio de Santillana provide evidence in Hamlet's Mill that ancient cultures -- from the world over -- saw the shining path of the Milky Way as the road the soul took between incarnations.  The two points where it met the horizon were seen as gateways between this world and the other world.

They also present evidence that various ancient myths describing a column of smoke rising up from the abyss are actually coded references to the Milky Way rising up from the southern horizon (and if you look at the Milky Way from a dark location you will see that it does resemble a silvery column of smoke emanating from the edge of the horizon).

These coded mythological descriptions often contain a reference to the two zodiac constellations who flank the Milky Way on either side: Scorpio and Sagittarius (the Archer, often traditionally portrayed as a centaur wielding a bow and arrow).  Von Dechend and de Santillana argue, following the work of German philologist Professor Franz Boll (1867 - 1924), that references to an abyss or a well that goes down to the underworld and which is guarded by scorpion-beings or centaurs (or both) refer to this portion of the night sky.

In Appendix 36 of Hamlet's Mill (the entire text of which is available online here, and Appendix 36 of which can be found online here), the authors write:

The well, closed by a stone [. . .] is not unfamiliar to us [. . .].  There are more curious connections between wells and stones that ask for consideration in future investigations, such as the following three items:
[. . .]
(3) The falling star that opened the abyss, according to Revelation -- a future event, for a change.  Out of this well ascends smoke which darkens the sun and air, and Franz Boll pointed aptly to the "smoke-barrel," south of Sagittarius and Scorpius: Ara, the Altar in the Galaxy [footnote: Thymiatherion, or thyterion.  Michael Scotus still made it "puteus sive sacarius."  See F. Boll, Sphaera (1903), p. 446; Boll, Aus der Offenbarung Johannis (1914), p. 75.], and under this very Altar are the souls of the witnesses of God waiting for the last day (Rev. VI.9).  According to Eratosthenes' catasterisms, at this Altar Zeus and his followers took their oath before attacking Kronos.
[. . .] Franz Boll (Offenbarung, pp. 69ff) has recognized in those strange locust demons of Revelation -- they come out of the well of the abyss -- who resemble horses with human heads, and have wings, and tails of scorpions, the Sagittarius-Centaur of Mesopotamian boundary stones, also to be found on the rectangular zodiac of Dendera.  Revelation also states that they had wreaths of gold on their heads; the Egyptian Sagittarius wears a double crown, the Teukros tradition ascribes to the constellation "the royal face" (to prosopon basilikon, Boll, Sphaera, pp. 181f).  In the Gilgamesh Epic Scorpion men watch the way to the other world; Virgil (Aeneid 6.286) makes it centaurs.  Hamlet's Mill, appendix 36, pp 423-424.
 The reference to Revelation is primarily concerned with the description that makes up Revelation chapter 9.  There, the characteristics of the scorpion are clearly present, and emphasized several times (in verses 3, 5, and 10).  So is the concept of smoke rising up out of a bottomless pit (in verses 1, 2, and 3).  The "locusts" described in verses 3 through 11 are probably describing the constellation Sagittarius (and combining the aspects of the nearby Scorpio).

Sagittarius is a constellation that could be described as resembling a locust almost as much as a centaur -- in modern star-charts viewers are often directed to look for the sub-set of stars in Sagittarius that resemble a teapot and which could also be seen as resembling a locust:























Sagittarius is located just on the other side of the rising "smoke" of the Milky Way from Scorpio ("to the left").  Below is a diagram of the complete constellation of Sagittarius in which the tail of the Scorpion can be seen coming in from the right side of the picture:

























In the above diagram, I have added blue lines to give the outline of the constellation as suggested by H.A. Rey in his indispensable book The Stars: A New Way to See Them.  As usual, his outline is far more helpful to viewers looking for the constellation than either the flowery allegorical pictures common in previous centuries or the spare geometric abstractions common in more modern star maps.

Note that the Revelation passage does make reference to making a sound like horses running to battle in regard to the locusts (in verse 9), which reinforces the assertion that they are related to the constellation Sagittarius who is traditionally a centaur.  Further, they are described as having the "faces of men" (in verse 7), which is also indicative of centaurs.

Additionally, they are described as having "crowns like gold" -- and one can see in the diagram above that the constellation of the Southern Crown (Corona Australis) is extremely close to the constellation Sagittarius.  Below is a detail of the Southern Crown with lines drawn along the arc of stars that make up the crown; H.A. Rey notes that it is difficult to see from the middle northern latitudes (only the southernmost US latitudes can see it), as its stars are much fainter than those of the bottom of the Scorpion's tail, which are at about the same celestial declination.


























Significantly, in the passage cited from Hamlet's Mill appendix 36 cited above, the authors note that the gateway to the other world is guarded by scorpion-men in the Gilgamesh series (see Tablet IX, which can be read online in this web version), while the gateway to the other world is guarded by centaurs in Virgil's Aeneid (Book Six, line 400 and the surrounding passages).

As the summer goes on, the "rising smoke" of the Milky Way will become more and more visible.  However, there is perhaps no better time to get out and see the entirety of the beautiful and significant constellation of the Scorpion than right now.

The case of the fossilized copulating turtles

















Here's a piece of evidence worthy of a Sherlock Holmes (or Scooby Doo) mystery: fossilized turtles found in Germany, at the Messel Pit Fossil Site between Darmstadt and Frankfurt.

The turtles are a form of pitted-shell (or carettochelyid) turtle, Allaeochelys crassesculpta, and what is unique about these particular fossils is the fact that they are preserved as mating pairs -- fossilized during the act of copulation.  As this scientific paper published last month in the biology journal of the Royal Society explains, this is the first such example of fossilized vertebrates preserved in the act of having sex.  As this BBC article explains, about nine such pairs have been discovered in that area over the years.

Obviously, this presents something of a head-scratcher: how did these turtles happen to end up as fossils in such a position?  Presumably, both members of the mating pair must have died at the same time, indicating the likelihood of some sort of catastrophe that befell them rapidly.

Actually, the presence of any fossils generally presents a problem for uniformitarian geology (geology that attempts to explain most phenomena using long periods of non-catastrophic causes that have not changed much over millions of years), as this previous blog post explains. Animals that die (even if not in the middle of copulation) do not simply settle to the forest floor or the ocean floor and become fossilized -- they usually decompose long before that.  The presence of massive numbers of fossilized animals and plants on our planet may be evidence of a catastrophic event or events that created conditions in a rapid manner to preserve them before they decomposed.

With the case of the fossilized copulating turtles, the authorities in the mystery story have to come up with a thesis that fits the evidence, just as in a Sherlock Holmes or Scooby Doo mystery (this previous post discussed the usefulness of this analogy).  In this case, the authorities have their theory:
it is unlikely that the turtles would mate in poisonous surface waters. Instead, the turtles initiated copulation in habitable surface waters, but perished when their skin absorbed poisons while sinking into toxic layers. The mating pairs from Messel are therefore more consistent with a stratified, volcanic maar lake with inhabitable surface waters and a deadly abyss. 
This explanation is plausible, especially as the phenomenon appears to be localized, and as the lead author of the paper says that there is evidence of such rapid death happening to some mating turtles in volcanic lakes of East Africa.  However, we again point out that those turtles dying in volcanic lakes today are probably not going to end up as fossils millions of years from now, so this conventional storyline still has some holes in it.

An alternative explanation, and one that would explain how these turtles ended up this way, is that a catastrophic flood event rapidly buried these mating turtles in tons of wet sediments, killing them instantly and leading to their preservation as fossils, as described by Dr. Walt Brown in his hydroplate theory and supported by extensive other corroborating pieces of evidence.

Note that if the proponents of the "toxic volcanic lake theory" can point to supporting evidence from contemporary African lakes, it would appear that supporters of the hydroplate explanation can point to even more extensive supporting evidence in the form of literally thousands of instances of one fish fossilized in the act of devouring another fish (see image below, from Fossil Butte National Monument in Wyoming).




















The case of fish fossilized while eating other fish is a very strong parallel to these turtle fossils from Germany.  The fossils clearly seem to point to a sudden catastrophic mechanism.  Just to point out the obvious, if the larger fish died in the act of swallowing another fish alive, that second fish would probably extract itself and swim away.  Similarly, in the case of the turtles, if one turtle died during intercourse, the other would not be expected to wait around to become a fossil as well.  In the case of the fish, it is difficult to propose the theory that they somehow started their meal in shallow non-toxic waters and then died when they sank to more toxic depths, the way that conventional scientists are arguing in the case of the fossilized copulating turtles.

You decide: which explanation makes more sense?

Special thanks to my good friend Dan the Organic Farmer for alerting me to this turtle tale.

1776

























On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and drafted the Declaration of Independence, creating a new independent nation, the United States of America.

The first two complete sentences of that document are justly renowned for their stirring language and the ideas they put forth, and are worthy of memorization (I certainly had to memorize them at a young age during my schooling):
When in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to Separation.
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
It is interesting and perhaps not coincidental that this historic proclamation of freedom was drafted in the year 1776, because the number 1776 has great significance, significance that was no doubt well known to many of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence.

As John Anthony West explains with great lucidity in his 1979 book, Serpent in the Sky: The High Wisdom of Ancient Egypt, the earliest civilizations that we know of appear to have recognized that numbers carry great meaning and potential, extending far beyond their mathematical function and providing what he says is "a means, perhaps the best means, of understanding the world we experience" (31).  

Although Mr. West and others have demonstrated that this awareness predated Pythagoras (who may well have learned of it from the Egyptians, this concept has historically been known as Pythagoreanism:
The discovery of the irrational and of the laws of harmony and proportion were attributed to Pythagoras, the disconcertingly semi-legendary mystic and mathematician (ca. 580-500 BC) to whom was also attributed the development of Pythagorean number mysticism: the theory that numbers have innate meaning.  West, 31.
In Serpent in the Sky, Mr. West elaborates on this theory, providing detailed discussion of the Pythagorean significance of the numbers 1 through 9 (pages 44 through 69), while showing evidence of a far earlier understanding of the same concepts by the ancient Egyptians and an incorporation of these numerological principles into their cosmology.  His explanation of some important aspects of the number 4, for example, is discussed in this previous blog post.

Ross Hamilton takes up the importance of Pythagoras and number in his deep examination of the Great Serpent Mound of Ohio entitled The Mystery of the Serpent Mound: in Search of the Alphabet of the Gods (first published in 1993).  Much of his far-ranging work involves the evidence Mr. Hamilton finds for superimposing a hexagonal lattice over the Serpent Mound, a hexagon which opens up new perspectives on the Serpent Mound, and which has important connections to the philosophy of Pythagoras (who saw the hexagon and the number six as extremely significant) and to other ancient esoteric traditions (some of Ross Hamilton's amazing discussion of the importance of the hexagon was briefly mentioned in this previous blog post about the hexagonal polar jet stream photographed circling in the gaseous clouds of the planet Saturn).

Mr. Hamilton presents extensive evidence from ancient texts that the hexagon was often divided such that each side was marked with points that created four equal segments on each of its six sides, thereby creating twenty-four points around the perimeter of the figure (six sides times four segments per side yielding twenty-four).  If these twenty-four points are all connected in a lattice (see diagram below), then the internal intersections of that lattice will number 37.  The diagram below, of the familiar game-board of the modern board game known as "Chinese checkers," actually incorporates just such a hexagon divided in the exact manner described by Mr. Hamilton (and supported by ancient texts) -- simply disregard the colored triangles that sit on each side of the hexagon in the game board, and you will be able to see the hexagon quite clearly (the white hexagon in the image below).
  























The white hexagonal space in the image above has each of its sides divided into four equal segments.  This division creates twenty-four black circles around the perimeter of the white hexagon (you can count them if you want).  The lattice connecting the twenty-four perimeter nodes forms thirty-seven more intersections inside the hexagon (these intersections are marked with yellow circles in the image above).  The product of these two numbers (24 and 37), is 888.  Mr. Hamilton notes that ancient esoteric tradition ascribed great significance to the number 888.  On page 119 of his work, he explains:
It is by means of the 24 perimeter points of the solar hexagon (indicating the various limbs of the creation) multiplied by the 37 interior points (representing the weaving together of the four ideas) that the number 888 (and therefore Man) is achieved.
After some fascinating discussion of the significance of the number 888, he notes that the same esoteric tradition ascribed great significance to the doubling of 888, which represents "philosophically a redoubling of the resources of the spiritual soul" (122).  As readers may have already determined, the double of 888 is 1776.

Mr. Hamilton goes on to explain that "The cardinal 1776, as the number of the Great Work (the grand union), is called the eagle of eagles or the phoenix in the terminology of the Adepts" (122).  

The phoenix, of course, was anciently described as a glorious bird which would periodically undergo a miraculous death and rebirth through flames.  As its old incarnation was consumed in the flames, a new phoenix would appear (first as a tiny worm, according to some sources, a tradition which links the serpent and the phoenix, as the words for worm and serpent were often interchangeable in mythology), and then rise majestically from the flames.

The fact that the number 1776 is mystically associated with the phoenix appears to have been well understood by the founders of the United States of America, as many early symbols for the new nation revolve around the image of a phoenix.  The image above, for example, shows a proposed design for the Great Seal of the United States submitted to Congress by artist William Barton in 1782 (for details see this US State Department historical site).  The figure of a phoenix can be found on the shield at the center of the seal (Barton's idea for the Great Seal was not accepted, although his design for the reverse, featuring a pyramid of thirteen courses of masonry leading up to an all-seeing eye was accepted and can still be seen in the Great Seal today).  Detail of his phoenix at the center of his proposed Great Seal can be seen below.

























The suggestion that the founders of the United States were familiar with the esoteric numerology discussed above, and the connection between the number 1776 and the phoenix, should not really be viewed as too surprising or too far-fetched, given the fact that most of them were members of secret societies that had an interest in esoteric subjects (most notably Freemasonry).  As Flavio Barbiero has written in his book dealing with the deep historical origins of this fact (and other important aspects of the history of our world) entitled The Secret Society of Moses:
Many of the members of the first American Congress were Freemasons, starting with George Washington and those who wrote the Constitution of the United States.  Likewise, the protagonists of the Italian Risorgimento, from Mazzini to Garibaldi, were Freemasons.  Ultimately, the creators of the democratic system were Freemasons.  414.
Amazingly, if John Anthony West and Ross Hamilton are correct in their analysis (and I believe they are), then the roots of the number connections incorporated into that early proposed Great Seal stretch all the way back to Pythagoras and beyond -- to the ancient Egyptians and from there perhaps even earlier.  Further, if Ross Hamilton's analysis of the Great Serpent Mound of Ohio is correct, then the symbology and numerology connecting 1776 and the phoenix reached these shores many centuries before America's Founding Fathers!